XIII

Of the Coming of John

What bring they 'neath the midnight,
Beside the River-sea?
They bring the human heart wherein
No nightly calm can be;
That droppeth never with the wind,
Nor drieth with the dew;
O calm it, God; thy calm is broad
To cover spirits too.
The river floweth on.

MRS. BROWNING.

Carlisle Street runs westward from the centre of Johnstown,
across a great black bridge, down a hill and up again, by little
shops and meat-markets, past single-storied homes, until sud-
denly it stops against a wide green lawn. It is a broad, restful
place, with two large buildings outlined against the west.
When at evening the winds come swelling from the east, and
the great pall of the city's smoke hangs wearily above the
valley, then the red west glows like a dreamland down Car-
lisle Street, and, at the tolling of the supper-bell, throws the
passing forms of students in dark silhouette against the sky.
Tall and black, they move slowly by, and seem in the sinister
light to flit before the city like dim warning ghosts. Perhaps
they are; for this is Wells Institute, and these black students
have few dealings with the white city below.

And if you will notice, night after night, there is one dark
form that ever hurries last and late toward the twinkling lights
of Swain Hall,--for Jones is never on time. A long, strag-
gling fellow he is, brown and hard-haired, who seems to be
growing straight out of his clothes, and walks with a half-
apologetic roll. He used perpetually to set the quiet dining-
room into waves of merriment, as he stole to his place after
the bell had tapped for prayers; he seemed so perfectly awk-
ward. And yet one glance at his face made one forgive him
much,--that broad, good-natured smile in which lay no bit of
art or artifice, but seemed just bubbling good-nature and
genuine satisfaction with the world.

He came to us from Altamaha, away down there beneath
the gnarled oaks of Southeastern Georgia, where the sea
croons to the sands and the sands listen till they sink half
drowned beneath the waters, rising only here and there in
long, low islands. The white folk of Altamaha voted John a
good boy,--fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy
everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful. But
they shook their heads when his mother wanted to send him
off to school. "It'll spoil him,--ruin him," they said; and
they talked as though they knew. But full half the black folk
followed him proudly to the station, and carried his queer
little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook and
shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys
clapped him on the back. So the train came, and he pinched
his little sister lovingly, and put his great arms about his
mother's neck, and then was away with a puff and a roar into
the great yellow world that flamed and flared about the
doubtful pilgrim. Up the coast they hurried, past the squares
and palmettos of Savannah, through the cotton-fields and
through the weary night, to Millville, and came with the
morning to the noise and bustle of Johnstown.

And they that stood behind, that morning in Altamaha, and
watched the train as it noisily bore playmate and brother and
son away to the world, had thereafter one ever-recurring
word,--"When John comes." Then what parties were to be,
and what speakings in the churches; what new furniture in the
front room,--perhaps even a new front room; and there would
be a new schoolhouse, with John as teacher; and then perhaps
a big wedding; all this and more--when John comes. But the
white people shook their heads.

At first he was coming at Christmas-time,--but the vaca-
tion proved too short; and then, the next summer,--but times
were hard and schooling costly, and so, instead, he worked in
Johnstown. And so it drifted to the next summer, and the
next,--till playmates scattered, and mother grew gray, and
sister went up to the Judge's kitchen to work. And still the
legend lingered,--"When John comes."

Up at the Judge's they rather liked this refrain; for they too
had a John--a fair-haired, smooth-faced boy, who had played
many a long summer's day to its close with his darker
namesake. "Yes, sir! John is at Princeton, sir," said the
broad-shouldered gray-haired Judge every morning as he
marched down to the post-office. "Showing the Yankees
what a Southern gentleman can do," he added; and strode
home again with his letters and papers. Up at the great
pillared house they lingered long over the Princeton letter,--
the Judge and his frail wife, his sister and growing daughters.
"It'll make a man of him," said the Judge, "college is the
place." And then he asked the shy little waitress, "Well,
Jennie, how's your John?" and added reflectively, "Too bad,
too bad your mother sent him off--it will spoil him." And
the waitress wondered.

Thus in the far-away Southern village the world lay waiting,
half consciously, the coming of two young men, and dreamed
in an inarticulate way of new things that would be done and
new thoughts that all would think. And yet it was singular
that few thought of two Johns,--for the black folk thought of
one John, and he was black; and the white folk thought of
another John, and he was white. And neither world thought
the other world's thought, save with a vague unrest.

Up in Johnstown, at the Institute, we were long puzzled at
the case of John Jones. For a long time the clay seemed unfit
for any sort of moulding. He was loud and boisterous, always
laughing and singing, and never able to work consecutively at
anything. He did not know how to study; he had no idea of
thoroughness; and with his tardiness, carelessness, and appall-
ing good-humor, we were sore perplexed. One night we sat in
faculty-meeting, worried and serious; for Jones was in trouble
again. This last escapade was too much, and so we solemnly
voted "that Jones, on account of repeated disorder and inat-
tention to work, be suspended for the rest of the term."

It seemed to us that the first time life ever struck Jones as a
really serious thing was when the Dean told him he must
leave school. He stared at the gray-haired man blankly, with
great eyes. "Why,--why," he faltered, "but--I haven't grad-
uated!" Then the Dean slowly and clearly explained, remind-
ing him of the tardiness and the carelessness, of the poor
lessons and neglected work, of the noise and disorder, until
the fellow hung his head in confusion. Then he said quickly,
"But you won't tell mammy and sister,--you won't write
mammy, now will you? For if you won't I'll go out into the
city and work, and come back next term and show you
something." So the Dean promised faithfully, and John shoul-
dered his little trunk, giving neither word nor look to the
giggling boys, and walked down Carlisle Street to the great
city, with sober eyes and a set and serious face.

Perhaps we imagined it, but someway it seemed to us that
the serious look that crept over his boyish face that afternoon
never left it again. When he came back to us he went to work
with all his rugged strength. It was a hard struggle, for things
did not come easily to him,--few crowding memories of
early life and teaching came to help him on his new way; but
all the world toward which he strove was of his own building,
and he builded slow and hard. As the light dawned linger-
ingly on his new creations, he sat rapt and silent before the
vision, or wandered alone over the green campus peering
through and beyond the world of men into a world of thought.
And the thoughts at times puzzled him sorely; he could not
see just why the circle was not square, and carried it out
fifty-six decimal places one midnight,--would have gone
further, indeed, had not the matron rapped for lights out. He
caught terrible colds lying on his back in the meadows of
nights, trying to think out the solar system; he had grave
doubts as to the ethics of the Fall of Rome, and strongly
suspected the Germans of being thieves and rascals, despite
his textbooks; he pondered long over every new Greek word,
and wondered why this meant that and why it couldn't mean
something else, and how it must have felt to think all things
in Greek. So he thought and puzzled along for himself,--
pausing perplexed where others skipped merrily, and walking
steadily through the difficulties where the rest stopped and
surrendered.

Thus he grew in body and soul, and with him his clothes
seemed to grow and arrange themselves; coat sleeves got
longer, cuffs appeared, and collars got less soiled. Now and
then his boots shone, and a new dignity crept into his walk.
And we who saw daily a new thoughtfulness growing in his
eyes began to expect something of this plodding boy. Thus he
passed out of the preparatory school into college, and we who
watched him felt four more years of change, which almost
transformed the tall, grave man who bowed to us commence-
ment morning. He had left his queer thought-world and come
back to a world of motion and of men. He looked now for the
first time sharply about him, and wondered he had seen so
little before. He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time
the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first
noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression
before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints
and slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or
been greeted with a laugh. He felt angry now when men did
not call him "Mister," he clenched his hands at the "Jim
Crow" cars, and chafed at the color-line that hemmed in him
and his. A tinge of sarcasm crept into his speech, and a vague
bitterness into his life; and he sat long hours wondering and
planning a way around these crooked things. Daily he found
himself shrinking from the choked and narrow life of his
native town. And yet he always planned to go back to
Altamaha,--always planned to work there. Still, more and
more as the day approached he hesitated with a nameless
dread; and even the day after graduation he seized with
eagerness the offer of the Dean to send him North with the
quartette during the summer vacation, to sing for the Insti-
tute. A breath of air before the plunge, he said to himself in
half apology.

It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New
York were brilliant with moving men. They reminded John of
the sea, as he sat in the square and watched them, so change-
lessly changing, so bright and dark, so grave and gay. He
scanned their rich and faultless clothes, the way they carried
their hands, the shape of their hats; he peered into the hurry-
ing carriages. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he said, "This
is the World." The notion suddenly seized him to see where
the world was going; since many of the richer and brighter
seemed hurrying all one way. So when a tall, light-haired
young man and a little talkative lady came by, he rose half
hesitatingly and followed them. Up the street they went,
past stores and gay shops, across a broad square, until
with a hundred others they entered the high portal of a great
building.

He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and
felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded.
There seemed really no time for hesitation, so he drew it
bravely out, passed it to the busy clerk, and received simply a
ticket but no change. When at last he realized that he had
paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stockstill
amazed. "Be careful," said a low voice behind him; "you
must not lynch the colored gentleman simply because he's in
your way," and a girl looked up roguishly into the eyes of
her fair-haired escort. A shade of annoyance passed over the
escort's face. "You WILL not understand us at the South," he
said half impatiently, as if continuing an argument. "With all
your professions, one never sees in the North so cordial and
intimate relations between white and black as are everyday
occurrences with us. Why, I remember my closest playfellow
in boyhood was a little Negro named after me, and surely no
two,--WELL!" The man stopped short and flushed to the roots
of his hair, for there directly beside his reserved orchestra
chairs sat the Negro he had stumbled over in the hallway. He
hesitated and grew pale with anger, called the usher and gave
him his card, with a few peremptory words, and slowly sat
down. The lady deftly changed the subject.

All this John did not see, for he sat in a half-daze minding
the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint
perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and
low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different
from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had
known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a
hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The
infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every
muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes
and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the
lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled
in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and
dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If
he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and
setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be
the slave and butt of all? And if he had called, what right had
he to call when a world like this lay open before men?

Then the movement changed, and fuller, mightier harmony
swelled away. He looked thoughtfully across the hall, and
wondered why the beautiful gray-haired woman looked so
listless, and what the little man could be whispering about. He
would not like to be listless and idle, he thought, for he felt
with the music the movement of power within him. If he but
had some master-work, some life-service, hard,--aye, bitter
hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility, without
the cruel hurt that hardened his heart and soul. When at last a
soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the
vision of a far-off home, the great eyes of his sister, and
the dark drawn face of his mother. And his heart sank below the
waters, even as the sea-sand sinks by the shores of Altamaha,
only to be lifted aloft again with that last ethereal wail of the
swan that quivered and faded away into the sky.

It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some
time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and
saying politely, "Will you step this way, please, sir?" A
little surprised, he arose quickly at the last tap, and, turning
to leave his seat, looked full into the face of the fair-haired
young man. For the first time the young man recognized his
dark boyhood playmate, and John knew that it was the Judge's
son. The White John started, lifted his hand, and then froze
into his chair; the black John smiled lightly, then grimly, and
followed the usher down the aisle. The manager was sorry,
very, very sorry,--but he explained that some mistake had
been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed
of; he would refund the money, of course,--and indeed felt
the matter keenly, and so forth, and--before he had finished
John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square and
down the broad streets, and as he passed the park he buttoned
his coat and said, "John Jones, you're a natural-born fool."
Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it
up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire. Then he seized
a scrap of paper and wrote: "Dear Mother and Sister--I am
coming--John."

"Perhaps," said John, as he settled himself on the train,
"perhaps I am to blame myself in struggling against my
manifest destiny simply because it looks hard and unpleasant.
Here is my duty to Altamaha plain before me; perhaps they'll
let me help settle the Negro problems there,--perhaps they
won't. 'I will go in to the King, which is not according to the
law; and if I perish, I perish.'" And then he mused and
dreamed, and planned a life-work; and the train flew south.

Down in Altamaha, after seven long years, all the world
knew John was coming. The homes were scrubbed and scoured,
--above all, one; the gardens and yards had an unwonted
trimness, and Jennie bought a new gingham. With some
finesse and negotiation, all the dark Methodists and Presbyteri-
ans were induced to join in a monster welcome at the Baptist
Church; and as the day drew near, warm discussions arose on
every corner as to the exact extent and nature of John's
accomplishments. It was noontide on a gray and cloudy day
when he came. The black town flocked to the depot, with a
little of the white at the edges,--a happy throng, with "Good-
mawnings" and "Howdys" and laughing and joking and
jostling. Mother sat yonder in the window watching; but
sister Jennie stood on the platform, nervously fingering her
dress, tall and lithe, with soft brown skin and loving eyes
peering from out a tangled wilderness of hair. John rose
gloomily as the train stopped, for he was thinking of the "Jim
Crow" car; he stepped to the platform, and paused: a little
dingy station, a black crowd gaudy and dirty, a half-mile of
dilapidated shanties along a straggling ditch of mud. An over-
whelming sense of the sordidness and narrowness of it all
seized him; he looked in vain for his mother, kissed coldly
the tall, strange girl who called him brother, spoke a short,
dry word here and there; then, lingering neither for hand-
shaking nor gossip, started silently up the street, raising his
hat merely to the last eager old aunty, to her open-mouthed
astonishment. The people were distinctly bewildered. This
silent, cold man,--was this John? Where was his smile and
hearty hand-grasp? "'Peared kind o' down in the mouf,"
said the Methodist preacher thoughtfully. "Seemed monstus
stuck up," complained a Baptist sister. But the white post-
master from the edge of the crowd expressed the opinion of
his folks plainly. "That damn Nigger," said he, as he shoul-
dered the mail and arranged his tobacco, "has gone North
and got plum full o' fool notions; but they won't work in
Altamaha." And the crowd melted away.

The meeting of welcome at the Baptist Church was a
failure. Rain spoiled the barbecue, and thunder turned the
milk in the ice-cream. When the speaking came at night, the
house was crowded to overflowing. The three preachers had
especially prepared themselves, but somehow John's manner
seemed to throw a blanket over everything,--he seemed so
cold and preoccupied, and had so strange an air of restraint
that the Methodist brother could not warm up to his theme
and elicited not a single "Amen"; the Presbyterian prayer
was but feebly responded to, and even the Baptist preacher,
though he wakened faint enthusiasm, got so mixed up in his
favorite sentence that he had to close it by stopping fully
fifteen minutes sooner than he meant. The people moved
uneasily in their seats as John rose to reply. He spoke slowly
and methodically. The age, he said, demanded new ideas; we
were far different from those men of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries,--with broader ideas of human brother-
hood and destiny. Then he spoke of the rise of charity and
popular education, and particularly of the spread of wealth
and work. The question was, then, he added reflectively,
looking at the low discolored ceiling, what part the Negroes of
this land would take in the striving of the new century. He
sketched in vague outline the new Industrial School that
might rise among these pines, he spoke in detail of the
charitable and philanthropic work that might be organized, of
money that might be saved for banks and business. Finally he
urged unity, and deprecated especially religious and denomi-
national bickering. "To-day," he said, with a smile, "the
world cares little whether a man be Baptist or Methodist, or
indeed a churchman at all, so long as he is good and true.
What difference does it make whether a man be baptized in
river or washbowl, or not at all? Let's leave all that littleness,
and look higher." Then, thinking of nothing else, he slowly
sat down. A painful hush seized that crowded mass. Little
had they understood of what he said, for he spoke an un-
known tongue, save the last word about baptism; that they
knew, and they sat very still while the clock ticked. Then at
last a low suppressed snarl came from the Amen corner, and
an old bent man arose, walked over the seats, and climbed
straight up into the pulpit. He was wrinkled and black, with
scant gray and tufted hair; his voice and hands shook as with
palsy; but on his face lay the intense rapt look of the religious
fanatic. He seized the Bible with his rough, huge hands;
twice he raised it inarticulate, and then fairly burst into
words, with rude and awful eloquence. He quivered, swayed,
and bent; then rose aloft in perfect majesty, till the people
moaned and wept, wailed and shouted, and a wild shrieking
arose from the corners where all the pent-up feeling of the
hour gathered itself and rushed into the air. John never knew
clearly what the old man said; he only felt himself held up to
scorn and scathing denunciation for trampling on the true
Religion, and he realized with amazement that all unknow-
ingly he had put rough, rude hands on something this little
world held sacred. He arose silently, and passed out into the
night. Down toward the sea he went, in the fitful starlight,
half conscious of the girl who followed timidly after him.
When at last he stood upon the bluff, he turned to his little
sister and looked upon her sorrowfully, remembering with
sudden pain how little thought he had given her. He put his
arm about her and let her passion of tears spend itself on his
shoulder.

Long they stood together, peering over the gray unresting
water.

"John," she said, "does it make every one--unhappy
when they study and learn lots of things?"

He paused and smiled. "I am afraid it does," he said.

"And, John, are you glad you studied?"

"Yes," came the answer, slowly but positively.

She watched the flickering lights upon the sea, and said
thoughtfully, "I wish I was unhappy,--and--and," putting
both arms about his neck, "I think I am, a little, John."

It was several days later that John walked up to the Judge's
house to ask for the privilege of teaching the Negro school.
The Judge himself met him at the front door, stared a little
hard at him, and said brusquely, "Go 'round to the kitchen
door, John, and wait." Sitting on the kitchen steps, John
stared at the corn, thoroughly perplexed. What on earth had
come over him? Every step he made offended some one. He
had come to save his people, and before he left the depot he
had hurt them. He sought to teach them at the church, and had
outraged their deepest feelings. He had schooled himself
to be respectful to the Judge, and then blundered into his
front door. And all the time he had meant right,--and yet,
and yet, somehow he found it so hard and strange to fit his
old surroundings again, to find his place in the world about
him. He could not remember that he used to have any diffi-
culty in the past, when life was glad and gay. The world
seemed smooth and easy then. Perhaps,--but his sister came
to the kitchen door just then and said the Judge awaited him.

The Judge sat in the dining-room amid his morning's mail,
and he did not ask John to sit down. He plunged squarely into
the business. "You've come for the school, I suppose. Well
John, I want to speak to you plainly. You know I'm a friend
to your people. I've helped you and your family, and would
have done more if you hadn't got the notion of going off.
Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all their
reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in
this country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can
never expect to be the equal of white men. In their place,
your people can be honest and respectful; and God knows,
I'll do what I can to help them. But when they want to
reverse nature, and rule white men, and marry white women,
and sit in my parlor, then, by God! we'll hold them under if
we have to lynch every Nigger in the land. Now, John, the
question is, are you, with your education and Northern no-
tions, going to accept the situation and teach the darkies to be
faithful servants and laborers as your fathers were,--I knew
your father, John, he belonged to my brother, and he was a
good Nigger. Well--well, are you going to be like him, or are
you going to try to put fool ideas of rising and equality into
these folks' heads, and make them discontented and unhappy?"

"I am going to accept the situation, Judge Henderson,"
answered John, with a brevity that did not escape the keen
old man. He hesitated a moment, and then said shortly,
"Very well,--we'll try you awhile. Good-morning."

It was a full month after the opening of the Negro school
that the other John came home, tall, gay, and headstrong.
The mother wept, the sisters sang. The whole white town was
glad. A proud man was the Judge, and it was a goodly sight
to see the two swinging down Main Street together. And yet
all did not go smoothly between them, for the younger man
could not and did not veil his contempt for the little town,
and plainly had his heart set on New York. Now the one
cherished ambition of the Judge was to see his son mayor of
Altamaha, representative to the legislature, and--who could
say?--governor of Georgia. So the argument often waxed hot
between them. "Good heavens, father," the younger man
would say after dinner, as he lighted a cigar and stood by the
fireplace, "you surely don't expect a young fellow like me to
settle down permanently in this--this God-forgotten town
with nothing but mud and Negroes?" "I did," the Judge
would answer laconically; and on this particular day it seemed
from the gathering scowl that he was about to add something
more emphatic, but neighbors had already begun to drop in to
admire his son, and the conversation drifted.

"Heah that John is livenin' things up at the darky school,"
volunteered the postmaster, after a pause.

"What now?" asked the Judge, sharply.

"Oh, nothin' in particulah,--just his almighty air and up-
pish ways. B'lieve I did heah somethin' about his givin' talks
on the French Revolution, equality, and such like. He's what
I call a dangerous Nigger."

"Oh," said he, "it's the darky that tried to force himself
into a seat beside the lady I was escorting--"

But Judge Henderson waited to hear no more. He had been
nettled all day, and now at this he rose with a half-smothered
oath, took his hat and cane, and walked straight to the
schoolhouse.

For John, it had been a long, hard pull to get things started
in the rickety old shanty that sheltered his school. The Ne-
groes were rent into factions for and against him, the parents
were careless, the children irregular and dirty, and books,
pencils, and slates largely missing. Nevertheless, he struggled
hopefully on, and seemed to see at last some glimmering of
dawn. The attendance was larger and the children were a
shade cleaner this week. Even the booby class in reading
showed a little comforting progress. So John settled himself
with renewed patience this afternoon.

"Now, Mandy," he said cheerfully, "that's better; but you
mustn't chop your words up so: 'If--the-man--goes.' Why,
your little brother even wouldn't tell a story that way, now
would he?"

"Naw, suh, he cain't talk."

"All right; now let's try again: 'If the man--'

"John!"

The whole school started in surprise, and the teacher half
arose, as the red, angry face of the Judge appeared in the
open doorway.

"John, this school is closed. You children can go home
and get to work. The white people of Altamaha are not
spending their money on black folks to have their heads
crammed with impudence and lies. Clear out! I'll lock the
door myself."

Up at the great pillared house the tall young son wandered
aimlessly about after his father's abrupt departure. In the
house there was little to interest him; the books were old and
stale, the local newspaper flat, and the women had retired
with headaches and sewing. He tried a nap, but it was too
warm. So he sauntered out into the fields, complaining dis-
consolately, "Good Lord! how long will this imprisonment
last!" He was not a bad fellow,--just a little spoiled and
self-indulgent, and as headstrong as his proud father. He
seemed a young man pleasant to look upon, as he sat on the
great black stump at the edge of the pines idly swinging his
legs and smoking. "Why, there isn't even a girl worth getting
up a respectable flirtation with," he growled. Just then his
eye caught a tall, willowy figure hurrying toward him on the
narrow path. He looked with interest at first, and then burst
into a laugh as he said, "Well, I declare, if it isn't Jennie, the
little brown kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before what
a trim little body she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you haven't
kissed me since I came home," he said gaily. The young girl
stared at him in surprise and confusion,--faltered something
inarticulate, and attempted to pass. But a wilful mood had
seized the young idler, and he caught at her arm. Frightened,
she slipped by; and half mischievously he turned and ran after
her through the tall pines.

Yonder, toward the sea, at the end of the path, came John
slowly, with his head down. He had turned wearily homeward
from the schoolhouse; then, thinking to shield his mother
from the blow, started to meet his sister as she came from
work and break the news of his dismissal to her. "I'll go
away," he said slowly; "I'll go away and find work, and
send for them. I cannot live here longer." And then the fierce,
buried anger surged up into his throat. He waved his arms and
hurried wildly up the path.

The great brown sea lay silent. The air scarce breathed.
The dying day bathed the twisted oaks and mighty pines in
black and gold. There came from the wind no warning, not a
whisper from the cloudless sky. There was only a black man
hurrying on with an ache in his heart, seeing neither sun nor
sea, but starting as from a dream at the frightened cry that
woke the pines, to see his dark sister struggling in the arms of
a tall and fair-haired man.

He said not a word, but, seizing a fallen limb, struck him
with all the pent-up hatred of his great black arm, and the
body lay white and still beneath the pines, all bathed in
sunshine and in blood. John looked at it dreamily, then walked
back to the house briskly, and said in a soft voice, "Mammy,
I'm going away--I'm going to be free."

She gazed at him dimly and faltered, "No'th, honey, is yo'
gwine No'th agin?"

He looked out where the North Star glistened pale above
the waters, and said, "Yes, mammy, I'm going--North."

Then, without another word, he went out into the narrow
lane, up by the straight pines, to the same winding path, and
seated himself on the great black stump, looking at the blood
where the body had lain. Yonder in the gray past he had
played with that dead boy, romping together under the sol-
emn trees. The night deepened; he thought of the boys at
Johnstown. He wondered how Brown had turned out, and
Carey? And Jones,--Jones? Why, he was Jones, and he
wondered what they would all say when they knew, when
they knew, in that great long dining-room with its hundreds
of merry eyes. Then as the sheen of the starlight stole over
him, he thought of the gilded ceiling of that vast concert hall,
heard stealing toward him the faint sweet music of the swan.
Hark! was it music, or the hurry and shouting of men? Yes,
surely! Clear and high the faint sweet melody rose and fluttered
like a living thing, so that the very earth trembled as with the
tramp of horses and murmur of angry men.

He leaned back and smiled toward the sea, whence rose the
strange melody, away from the dark shadows where lay the
noise of horses galloping, galloping on. With an effort he
roused himself, bent forward, and looked steadily down the
pathway, softly humming the "Song of the Bride,"--

"Freudig gefuhrt, ziehet dahin."

Amid the trees in the dim morning twilight he watched their
shadows dancing and heard their horses thundering toward
him, until at last they came sweeping like a storm, and he
saw in front that haggard white-haired man, whose eyes
flashed red with fury. Oh, how he pitied him,--pitied him,
--and wondered if he had the coiling twisted rope. Then, as
the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and
turned his closed eyes toward the Sea.